11/09/2009

The last documentary of Venice Days screened today, to audiences who were stirred to discover the little-known Italian poet Antonia Pozzi, in Marina Spada’s Poetry, You See Me.

The film opens with scenes of Milan, the native city of both the director and her subject –as well as the setting for Spada’s previous film, As the Shadow, which she brought to Venice Days 2006. It incorporates passages from Pozzi’s writing and home videos the upper class girl, who already began writing penetrating and mature verses in her diary when she was 13. Constricted by her family (her father was a fascist sympathizer) and never accepted by Milan’s predominantly male literary circles, she committed suicide at the age of 26 in 1938.

Pozzi’s poetry and life are also related through Maria (Elena Ghiaurov), a researcher of her work; and H5N1, a group of “street artists” from Milan whom Maria meets, and who post their original poetry on the city’s walls and edifices and, later, Pozzi’s work as well.

The director holds poetry in the highest esteem, ever since one of the biggest turning points in her own life came during adolescence, when she first read Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”.

She says she made Poetry to render visible “one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, who was removed from history. But in doing the research, sometimes I would get so angry at Antonia for killing herself, for not giving people a chance to meet her and change her life.” Spada is furthermore convinced that Pozzi, who had already begun dabbling with a movie camera before she died, during WWII would have joined the Resistance and later become a director.

The filmmaker claims she owes much to her producer Renata Tardani of Miro Film, who was her “no man” – a critical, guiding force through the film’s many versions that she and co-screenwriters Marella Pessina and Simona Confalonieri drafted.

The 52-minute Poetry, You See Me was made for €150,000 and was only recently completed. Tardini says they are now starting the arduous process of looking for local and international distribution.